A couple of years ago I had the misfortune to stand on some glass when I was barefoot. I pulled out the shard and thought it would be fine. At the time I didn't realize there was still glass slivers in my foot.
Some time later I started having a lot of pain, and then I knew I had to get it out. The last time I had anything like that happen was during my childhood. As we ran around barefoot most of the time in my little Zululand village, my mother was used to us having thorns and other assorted things in our feet and hands. |
Soaking the ouch!
After that it was easy to get it out with a pair of tweezers. Later, it must have fallen out of favour with my mother, because she started to soak bread in hot water, and squeeze the water out. Then the hot bread would be applied in the same way. It worked wonderfully well too. Any time there was an infection, out came the soaked bread and it would just clear everything.
Horse sense
So anyway, when I had this glass bit in my foot I knew what to do. I went to the pharmacy, and asked for a poultice. The young woman looked at me as though I'd asked her for the moon. She had never heard of such a thing. Neither had the pharmacist!
I felt so humiliated and unsure of myself after this. It didn't occur to me to do some online research, but since then it's been interesting to find out there are still poultice versions around. They're mostly used for horse injuries, but some folks do use them for their own injuries. |
Finally I had to submit to having a doctor cut it out of my foot. That is painful beyond belief, because there are so many nerves in your foot. I screamed. How embarrassing.
I'm still wondering why poultices aren't used? It would save a lot of money and pain.